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| August 2011Welcome to The CTMA Connector, a monthly newsletter designed to provide news and ideas about the Commercial Technologies for Maintenance Activities (CTMA) program. The CTMA program is a joint Department of Defense/National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (DoD/NCMS) effort promoting collaborative technology development between industry and the DoD maintenance and repair facilities. This newsletter highlights ongoing projects, serves as a forum for promoting new project ideas, and provides other news of interest to the program. Our goal is to stimulate your participation and solicit your input. Feel free to submit items for the newsletter as well as any suggestions to make it more useful. More information about the program can be found at http://ctma.ncms.org/.To subscribe or unsubscribe to the CTMA Connector, send a message to:listserv@listserv.ncms.org with “subscribe CTMANewsletter” or “unsubscribe CTMANewsletter” in the message body.
We welcome the following companies/organizations into NCMS: Honeywell Process Solutions division of Honeywell International Honeywell Process Solutions is a division of Honeywell Automation and Control Solutions (ACS) and has been a pioneer in automation control for more than 30 years. CTMA Project Completion: Laser Coating Removal for Helicopter Blade Refurbishment (DoD Partners: Navy Fleet Readiness Center East, Naval Underseas Warfare Center Keyport) To satisfy operational needs, Fleet Readiness Center (FRC) East must refurbish up to 150 main helicopter rotor blades each month. During blade refurbishment, workers remove the topcoat of paint using manually-operated, air-driven orbital sanders. The process requires extensive, tedious labor in a dusty, uncomfortable environment. As illustrated in Figure 1, personnel must wear cumbersome and costly personal protection equipment to avoid dust inhalation due to toxic compounds in the coatings. Personnel complain of repetitive stress injuries and fatigue, and lost time is significant. Hand-sanding with air-driven orbital sanders often leads to substrate damage resulting in additional delays (Figure 2). Until this project, manually-controlled sanding was the only coating removal method approved for blade refurbishment operations at FRC East. The Integration of Laser Coating Removal for Helicopter Blade Refurbishment project was initiated to:
This project resulted in the approved use of automated laser paint stripping for thin composite helicopter rotor blades using high-speed process feedback to protect the substrate. The feedback system relies on color recognition to selectively strip topcoat while preserving primer and substrate, thereby ensuring substrate integrity. The process strips a blade in less than one-third the time compared to conventional techniques, eliminates the generation of secondary hazardous waste, and provides an unprecedented level of safety and comfort for the maintainers. The system was installed at FRC East in June 2009 and is currently stripping rotor blades (Figures 3 and 4). The project has demonstrated the ability to successfully implement a set-and-forget automated blade stripping system, and has involved industry partners to ensure further commercialization and dissemination of the technology. The successful implementation of this system represents a leap in both laser stripping and automated system technology.
Figure 1. Conventional Helicopter Stripping Process
Figure 2. Blade Damage from Orbital Hand Sanding Figure 3. ARBSS at FRC East Prepared to Strip Rotor Blade
Figure 4. Operator Control Room The technologies developed and proven in this effort can now be readily applied to a broad array of composite and metal structures throughout the Department of Defense (DoD) that are costly to refurbish, such as aircraft wings, stabilizers, and fuselages. The project promises numerous benefits to both warfighters and to those who support them. Specifically, helicopter rotor blade stripping time is reduced from 22 hours/blade to 8 hours/blade, and will be further reduced to <3 hours/blade with a planned laser upgrade. The reduction in processing time will enable FRC East to boost throughput in order to meet operational needs. The quantitative benefits are considerable. The per unit repair cost would be reduced from $1,188.14/blade to $222.53/blade. With a production rate of 940 blades per year ($908K annual savings), the Phase II system would generate a straight line payback of 1.54 years. Additionally, the use of real-time sensor feedback to control stripping will prevent any inadvertent secondary damage to the blade, eliminating any additional delays. The FRC East labor normally expended to strip rotor blades can now be put to use on other immediate warfighter refurbishment activities of critical need to the warfighter. The blade stripping maintainers who support the warfighter will benefit through elimination both of repetitive stress injuries and the need to wear personal protective equipment, which is hot, cumbersome, and difficult to work in. Laser stripping technology eliminates secondary waste generation and reduces mass of effluent to less than the mass of coating removed, and thus offers both environmental and worker health and safety benefits. The project has brought the state-of-the-art of both laser stripping and robotic system integration to a level in which it is readily available for transition to other DoD applications, such as stripping of flight control surfaces and many other refurbishment activities. NCMS Contact is Doyle Maleche, doylem@ncms.org, 360-782-1370. Plan to visit the NCMS/CTMA Booth at the Defense Maintenance Symposium, Fort Worth, November 14-17. Four projects are being featured at this years booth as we try to regain best booth honors taken from us last year by “Big Ass Fans”. With a western theme, our booth includes: Imaginestics – IUID for Legacy Parts Ecylpse International – Enhanced Wiring Integrity Systems ID Systems – Centralized Fleet Automated Management Systems Advanced Tooling Corporation – No Mask Tooling for Plating Baths Make plans next year for the 2012 CTMA Symposium 26-29 March, San Diego We appreciate your feedback. Please contact Chuck Ryan with suggestions or input on other topics that would be of interest to you in this newsletter. The CTMA Program is sponsored by the Department of Defense; the content of this newsletter does not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the government; no official endorsement should be inferred. |
| © 2011 |
